Make it malasakit.

Malasakit is a Filipino value we ought to practice in the workplace. Professionals who show malasakit care for your people and your business.

Think about the admirable Filipino values. Practicing these values in the workplace is necessary and desirable. Filipinos value teamwork, responsibility, accountability and malasakit.

Malasakit Defined

Your pain is my pain. That is what malasakit is all about. Whatever we do or not do will have an impact on the lives of others.

When we refused to help someone in need, we refused to help ourselves too.

Malasakit is not an action that we require from each other because they are expected of us. It is more than responsibility. It is more than accountability.

It is not even love because love is given to someone you know and value.

Malasakit is given even to a stranger. It is given even to those who cannot return a favor. It is given even to those who do not ask for help.

Where to find malasakit?

It is not difficult to find people with malasakit.

They appear every time tragedies happen. You must have seen the demonstration of malasakit during the typhoon Ondoy. There were many who endured sleepless nights just because they wanted to help.

I see the manifestations of malasakit everyday in small, often times invisible ways. But those who have malasakit cannot unsee them when they happen.

An old woman could not cross the street and a young girl helped her. Not really a big thing to the young girl, but it was a great help to the old woman.

Malasakit in the Workplace

We can create a culture of malasakit in the workplace. We must be people of malasakit in the workplace.

An employee with malasakit take full ownership of the success and failure of an organization, of a community, and of a nation. They work because they know that doing so will make an impact to others.

By creating the culture of malasakit in the workplace, we help the employees strengthen their commitment to each other and to the community they are serving.

Make your next team building be about malasakit. Let us build each other through malasakit.

It is great to see people with malasakit during the good times too.

Jef Menguin

P.S. The word malasakit is so strong that politicians make use of it every time there is an election. For one, the Malasakit Centers which are funded by the taxes of the people are used to promote the candidacy of one close to the President. I often say that the absence of malasakit means “malas” at “sakit”.

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